Page 126 of The Trophy

He defends me, but he sounds uncertain. “I can’t believe it was her.”

Blaze chimes in. “Luca, there must be another explanation.”

He’s the one who sounds more confident that I would never have betrayed their confidence.

An abrupt noise makes me jump. It sounds as if someone had slammed their hand on a hard surface.

Luca’s voice is full of a finality that shatters the pieces of my already broken heart to a fine dust. “I don’t want to believe it either, but there’s seriously no one else.”

I don’t even realize that the burning feeling is caused by the hot tears running down my face.

He thinks I’m like every other woman who has used him before. That I was with him because of his title and wealth; that I sold him out like that hookup who sold a pair of his underwear at Yale.

He thinks the post is right, that I’m a slut and a gold digger who is with them because of the life of luxury I think they can provide.

My heart is breaking so much that my chest hurts, I need to get out of here.

I turn around, reaching the suite’s door in a couple of short strides.

“Ma’am is everything ok?” the guard asks.

I nod practically on autopilot, focused on getting away from here. It’s like an out of body experience, like watching myself faking a wane smile and asking for pen and paper to leave a note with the excuse that something has come up.

I scribble a few words and then run.

It’s surprising how fast you can run even though you feel unsteady on your legs.

Night has fallen and I don’t know where I’m going.

It doesn’t matter. Anywhere as long as I’m far away from that hotel room, from them.

The words “slut, gold digger, puck bunny,” echo in my ears in a vicious, endless loop.

I didn’t realize that the Grand Hotel was so close to the marina.

CHAPTER 26

MEET YOUR DESTINY

BLAZE

Fuck.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

That’s the only thing I can think of when we get to Lakyn’s house and there’s no sign of her. We’ve been trying to call her and text her but her phone must be turned off.

The lights in the apartment are off, so her roommate must be out too. “Where else could she be?”

I don’t even know who I’m asking that question to. The guys, myself or the fucking universe. Anyone with a better answer than the blank my brain is drawing right about now.

Cash and Luca look just as stressed and frantic as I feel. We look at each other at a loss to how we got here in this moment, when the day had begun so well.

But dwelling on that won’t help us now. There’s only one thing that matters, we need to find Lakyn.

We come to the same conclusion pretty much at the same time.

“Bay!” we all shout.

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